The new captain for the national cricket team, Clinton Rubagumya, has said that he and his side are ready for the test against Ghana as both sides go head to head in a T20 friendly match scheduled on Wednesday, August 18 at Gahanga International Cricket Stadium.

The test opens the T20 bilateral series during which the two nations will square off for a five-fixture test which runs until August 23, as part of preparations for the ICC men’s T20 Cricket World cup sub regional Africa qualifier A slated to take place in Kigali from October 14-23.

"We wanted to play Ghana beforehand because it’s among the best teams that we will play in the T20 Cricket World Cup qualifier in which we are in the same group. We are ready and everyone is fit ahead of the fixtures. We want to test ourselves and see where we are and improve from thereon,” Rubagumya said prior to today’s game.

Both sides are playing the bilateral series to prepare for the ICC men’s T20 Cricket World cup sub regional Africa qualifier while the pair will also be looking at climbing the ICC T20 ranking table.

Until Ghana’s game, Rwanda had never played a cricket game for over the past one and a half year since the first covid-19 case was reported in the country in March 2020.

National team head coach Martin Suji told the media that returning to action with the game against Ghana is going to be an exciting experience for his boys to prepare for the ICC men’s T20 World Cup qualifiers.

"The boys have been practicing for a long time and of course we cannot practice without playing Ghana to see where we are, whatever we are good at and what we are lacking. We hope it will give us something to work on as we prepare well for the World Cup qualifiers,” said Suji.

According to RCA, the series will be played under a bio secure bubble and there will be stern measures in place to reinforce all the existing Covid-19 Standard operating procedures including social distancing, use of masks, temperature checks, sanitizing and testing.